The Old Milk Wagon
by Ellcrys
Summary: On a sleepless spring night, a song and a memory incite an unexpected and somewhat unwelcome adventure for Thomas and Cecile.


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Disclaimer: Konami owns Thomas and Cecile, and I just borrowed them to pet and cuddle for a little while because they're adorable.  
Song's lyrics are not by me - although after extensive research on the web, I can't find out who they do belong to, or what the name of the song is.

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Notes: Post-S3, mindless fluff, because these two are cute and fluffy. I don't think there are any spoilers, though I did take some cues on what the characters would be up to after the game from the blurbs in the ending.  
I guess this fic is partially a tribute to my parents, who used to sing me this song when I was a little kid. However, I can't remember most of the words, and can't find them anywhere on the web, so they might be slightly inaccurate... but I get the feeling very few people have ever heard it anyway. But my parents, for all the ways they've driven me nuts in the last 25 years, really are great.  
...This fic is so darned fluffy it scares me. I don't write fluff, darnit. But... it's these two! I can't help it! They're like little 3D super-defrormed fuzzy bunnies!

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**The Old Milk Wagon**

Thomas took a deep breath of fresh night air and stretched as he paused outside the manor's front door. The manor's grounds in late spring had a scent of trees and water and growing grass, much different from the dusty town in the Outlands where he'd lived for much of his life.

He was getting used to the differences, he supposed, despite his uncertainty about remaining in a land so far from where he'd been raised. The Outlands wouldn't have been the same without his mother there, he thought as he began making the rounds of his castle out of habit. He couldn't rightfully say he had family here - not anymore - but the castle had given him friends, and that was close enough.

Careful not to slip in the darkness, he turned down the staircase that led down by the lake, to the locked building where Scott had begun his trading business and the plots of land Barts had tilled, now cared for by a handful of women who had taken up residence at the castle. The dojo Juan was building was coming along nicely, if slowly. Where Juan was involved, Thomas supposed that was to be expected. His new assistant, however, had plenty of energy to make up for Juan's lack of it - Emily was probably responsible for the fact that there was enough of a building to sleep in now. As Thomas passed the dojo, still half-built and skeletal in part, he heard faint snoring from within the completed room and knew Juan was taking advantage of that fact.

There was another sound, more pleasant, that caught Thomas' attention suddenly, and he paused in front of the blacksmith and armory, listening.

"I had a horse and his name was Napoleon,   
All on account of his bony parts...   
He was sired by Old Hambiltonian,   
Cursed by everyone around these parts!"

The merry singsong voice was drifting over from the paddock beside the stables. Thomas didn't need to round the corner to know who it belonged to, but when he did, he found her having climbed up on the fence, standing on the bottom crosspost and holding the top to balance herself, despite the fact she could have seen over it easily enough while standing on the ground. Her long hair was tied up in pigtails instead of tucked up under her helmet, and she was dressed in a long loose nightshirt with a ribbon at the neck, rather than her suit of armor - though Angel Guard leaned against the post closest to her.

Thomas smiled. It was just like Cecile to be prepared to defend the castle, even when merely stepping out for some fresh air at night.

"He was so thin, you could see right through him,   
Hair just as fine and as smooth as silk -   
Hitched him up to the old milk wagon,   
Taught him to stop when I hollered 'milk!'"

Her voice wasn't beautiful, per se, but it held an utter lack of self-consciousness that Thomas found rather endearing. Her song was only for herself and perhaps the nonjudgmental horses, and so absorbed was she in singing it that she didn't hear his footsteps until he was almost right behind her. Pausing, she turned to look down at him, and a smile lit up her face. "Oh, Thomas! Good evening - are you enoying the nice weather too?"

He nodded. "My room was too stuffy with the door shut, and when I opened it, the breeze from the hole in the wall at the end of the hallway was just too pleasant to pass up. There's nothing on the agenda for tomorrow but going over the books with Sebastian, so if won't harm anything if I stay up late tonight."

Cecile nodded back emphatically. "I've arranged the guards' and guards-in-training's schedules for the next three months already, and now that it's not just me, I get a day off every two weeks - and tomorrow is my day off." She set her jaw stubbornly. "But don't think that I'm slacking off - I promised to go to Iksay with Martha tomorrow afternoon, to help her carry back some new prizes for the lottery. She says no one's playing anymore, and maybe new prizes will get people interested again."

Thomas laughed softly. "Maybe she's right," he agreed, though secretly he suspected that the recent reemergence of rumors about a deal between the lottery clerk and the castle's fortuneteller had likely had more impact on ticket sales.

Looking relieved, Cecile hopped down from the fence, landing lightly on the ground next to Thomas. "So you think it's a good idea? I can go?"

"Yes - if the castle gets more revenue, and begins to turn more of a profit, perhaps we can start fixing the manor itself up a bit," Thomas mused. "Which could only improve revenue further - if the castle looks nicer, it will attract more people... And besides," he added, "not only would Martha appreciate an extra pair of hands to carry the merchandise, but you can protect her while you're on the road, just in case any monsters should attack."

Grinning widely, Cecile nodded. "Thank you, Thomas - I'll do my best!"

"I'm sure you will," Thomas agreed, and he sat down beneath a nearby tree. "What was that song you were singing a moment ago? Did you make it up yourself?"

"Oh, no," she said, laughing, but her expression grew more serious as she explained, kicking absently at tufts of grass with her slippers. "...We used to have horses at Budehuc, long ago, before we started to run out of money and the man who kept them moved away. I always liked watching them run... so my father used to sing that song to me all the time when I was a little girl."

"Oh... I'm sorry." Thomas lowered his eyes, folding his hands in his lap. He couldn't have known, of course, but he still felt bad.

"Sorry...?" Squatting down in front of him, she tilted her head to the side curiously. "Sorry for what?"

"For bringing up the subject of your father." He sighed, feeling terribly awkward. "I'm terribly sorry..."

She peered at him a moment longer, then shook her head firmly. "You don't need to apologize to me, Thomas - I'm the one who brought it up. I could've just said 'no', couldn't I?"

"I... I suppose you're right," Thomas agreed, looking up at her again as she stood and wandered back over towards the paddock. After a moment, he rose as well to join her, leaning on the fence to watch the horses.

"...He taught me to ride a little bit, too," Cecile added, breaking the silence between them. "He said if I was going to be a knight someday - and I could, because Lady Chris was already a squire at the time - I should know how to ride a horse as well as fight." Tilting her head back, she looked up into the sky, smiling. "And I told him yes, I wanted to be a knight. And then he'd lift me up and let me ride on the horse with him..."

Looking over at her, Thomas found himself smiling too. She often had that effect on him. "It sounds like he was quite a man."

Cecile nodded again. "Absolutely. I... I miss him a lot sometimes," she admitted, her face falling slightly, but she turned to Thomas and smiled again. "But it's all right. It wasn't until you came to Budehuc that I realized how lucky I was."

"Hmm...?" Thomas was curious. "What do you mean?"

"Umm... well..." Cecile stared down at the ground awkwardly, fidgeting. "I wouldn't want to make you feel bad..."

Thomas was even more curious now, and he placed a hand on her shoulder. "It's all right, go ahead," he assured her. "Say what you have to say, and I promise I won't take offense."

"Okay, it's just that..." She hesitated again, her eyes still averted. "Remember that night I asked why you came to Budehuc, if not for us? And you said your father made you come..."

"Yes...?"

"Well... your father's still alive, and mine isn't. But you barely know each other, and... and if you don't mind me saying so," she said, her face growing dark, "he wasn't very nice to you."

Thomas nodded. "You're right. And it doesn't look as though that will change anytime soon..." Despite the role he had played in the recent conflict with the renegade bishop and his followers, which had won him a degree of respect from the nation of Zexen and the tribes of the Grasslands, Thomas hadn't heard so much as a word of congratulations from his father since the war had ended. It seemed that his disowning was to remain permanent, even though the Zexen Council as a whole had finally agreed that Budehuc was to remain a free trade zone.

Cecile was looking at him with concern, and he shook his head. "It's all right - I lived most of my life without a father anyhow." He gave Cecile an encouraging smile. "Go on."

She turned to lean on the fence again, and looked back up into the night sky. "My father sang me songs, taught me to ride a horse, played games with me, and gave me hugs every time he came home. Even if I didn't have him for very long, I think I had the best father in the world."

Looking up at the stars as well, Thomas nodded again, and couldn't help smiling. "You may be right... I wish I'd known him."

"I do too," she agreed. "I bet he would have given you lots of hugs too! If you like hugs," she amended quickly.

Thomas laughed softly. "Who doesn't?"

"That's good." All of a sudden, Cecile threw her arms around Thomas with such force that he nearly had to take a step backwards. "Thank you, Thomas."

Once the initial startlement had worn off, Thomas relaxed enough to ease his arms around her in return. This wasn't the first time he'd had one of Cecile's hugs sprung on him, but this time it was more comfortable, seeing as she wasn't wearing her armor. Also, he supposed it helped that he wasn't also being crushed by a large butler and a kobold. "For what?" he asked, giving her a mystified smile.

"For coming here and showing me how lucky I am," she told him, her blue-green eyes shining in the starlight as she looked up at him gratefully.

He just laughed softly again. "You're very welcome. Everyone here has more than made up for any kindnesses I've shown them - especially you. You believed in me even when I gave up believing in myself."

"That's what friends are for," she reasoned, and settled into the hug with a contented sigh. Unsure of what to do, Thomas just accepted it, remaining as he was.

He hadn't been hugged for a long time, aside from that brief excited moment when they'd won their victory against the Zexen Council. Cecile's stories of her father had reminded him of his mother, who had always been kind and loving towards him, but there had come a time when too much affection towards a boy from his mother would be seen as an embarassment. His mother had understood that, and settled for an occasional squeeze on the way out the door. She'd had no family nearby, however, and after she had died...

He was drawn out of his thoughts by Cecile suddenly pulling back, an inspired gleam in her eyes. "Did anyone ever teach you how to ride a horse?" she asked.

"Kathy tried, a little," he replied, shaking his head. "I... wasn't very good at it."

"Of course not, if you were just starting out!"

As Cecile leapt over the fence into the paddock, still in slippers and nightgown, Thomas got the sinking feeling that he knew what she was up to. He asked anyway. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to teach you to ride!" came her reply, from behind a cluster of dark-colored horses by the trough. "Gallant is a good horsie - aren't you, Gallant? He'll obey every command, and give you a smooth ride."

"I don't know..." The horse Cecile was leading over by the tether rope seemed even larger than the one Kathy had given him to try, and on his circuit around the ranch, he'd leaned down against the horse's neck, hanging on for dear life until the ride had ended. In addition, this particular horse, all black except for a white spot on the nose, almost seemed to be glaring down menacingly at him. "Is it a good idea to go riding in the dark?"

"We're only going to go around the track here," Cecile told him with a shrug as she unlatched the gate and brought the horse through. "I helped Kathy clean up the barrels earlier, so I know there's nothing in the way. And even with the moon setting early, there's enough starlight that we can see the track just fine."

"Well..." Thomas didn't want to disappoint her, especially after having just cheered her up. "I suppose, but don't we need a saddle and bridle?"

"Not with Gallant!" Cecile boasted, petting the horse's side as she led them to the beginning of the packed earth trail. "He's the best horse ever - he won't go too fast unless you tell him to. And riding bareback isn't so hard." To prove it, she grabbed hold of the horse's mane, and swung up onto its back with the aid of a crate that stood near the start of the course. Giving Thomas an encouraging smile, she held down her hand. "Come on - I'll help you up."

"If you say so..." Thomas accepted her hand, and managed to clamber onto the horse's back behind her with a great deal of assistance. The horse snorted, shuffling its feet, and he wrapped his arms tightly around Cecile's waist to keep his balance. "...I don't think Gallant likes carrying two people at once."

"Nonsense," Cecile told him cheerfully. "Melville and Alanis used to ride him together."

"They're a little smaller than we are," Thomas pointed out.

"Sometimes Elliot joined them."

"...Oh."

"I told you Gallant was a good horse," she grinned, then turned her attention back to the horse. "Hold on to me tight, and I'll show you how it's done before you give it a try yourself. Are you ready?"

Thomas swallowed hard. "As ready as I'll ever be..."

"Okay!" Cecile gave the horse a sharp kick. "Giddyap!"

Despite what Cecile had said, the horse took off so fast that Thomas nearly tumbled off the back immediately. "I thought you said Gallant wouldn't go fast unless you asked him to!"

"Yeah... that's funny, usually he doesn't start off like that," Cecile said thoughtfully, her voice almost lost in the rushing wind. "Whoa, whoa - slow down, Gallant!"

The horse didn't appear to care, and in fact even seemed to be running faster with every pounding beat of Thomas' heart. "I don't think he's listening!"

"It's okay, everything's under control, don't panic," Cecile called back to him. "Just hold on! Let me think... Hmm..."

"Yeah, I'll do that!" Thomas gripped the sides of the horse as tightly as he could with his legs, and squeezed his eyes shut as they whizzed around the first bend, coming dangerously close to the trees beside the path.

"I can't control him!" Cecile exclaimed, a note of panic appearing in her voice. "I don't... Thomas? You were standing in front of this horse earlier... did he have a white star between his eyes?"

"No," Thomas gasped, clinging to her, "just a little white spot on his nose!"

"Oh no!" Cecile cried in dismay. "This isn't Gallant - this is his son, Sickle! He's half-wild and not completely tamed yet!"

Thomas felt his heart leap into his throat. "What do we do, then?"

"Just..." Cecile struggled for words, then gasped. "Hang on!"

"That's what I'm doing!" Thomas exclaimed, risking a look over his shoulder at another tree they'd narrowly missed colliding with.

"No - I mean, _hang on!_"

Thomas glanced ahead again, and immediately squeezed his eyes shut as Sickle jumped the fence that edged the track, crashing into the forest beyond.

In front of him, Cecile had flattened herself down against the horse's neck, and she glanced back at him, wide-eyed. "Stay low, Thomas - when he goes under branches, he might not think of the people on his back!"

Thomas leaned down as much as he could, his head resting against Cecile's back. The wind whistled in his ears, and small branches stung his hands and face as they flew through the forest. They'd gone quite some distance, with nothing changing in the situation, before he finally spoke up. "...What are we going to do?"

"He has to stop eventually!" Cecile replied, but the worry in her voice told Thomas she wasn't so sure about that. "For now, we just have to worry about - Thomas!"

Thomas hardly heard her shriek; he'd intended to lift his head just long enough to get a glimpse of the path before them, but all he'd seen was a large, leafy branch coming straight at him.

He landed flat on his back with a thud, and for a moment was content to simply lie there, limp and motionless. He was dead, he thought, as he stared up at the waving branch overhead in a daze. His eyes just hadn't realized it yet...

"Thomas! Thomas, Thomas!" Cecile's frantic voice roused him, and he tried lifting his head just a little. To his surprise, it worked, though it made him cough painfully, and he heard Cecile's voice growing closer.

"Is that you? Thomas? Thomas!" Seeing him on the ground, she rushed to his side, kneeling over him. "Are you all right? Are you? What hurts?"

"G... give me... a minute..." Thomas breathed faintly, and even that effort caused another round of painful coughing. "I... I'm all right, just... just got the wind knocked... out of me. And..." If he'd had the presence of mind, he'd have blushed, but he didn't think he could manage even that much at the moment. "And... my, er... my backside..."

"Oh, thank goodness! Thank goodness you're alive!" Cecile exclaimed, leaning down and nearly smothering him in a hug. "I thought I'd killed you!"

Thomas would have laughed, but he couldn't manage it, particularly under the circumstances. "Ex... excuse me... could you get off...? I... c-can't breathe..."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Cecile exclaimed, backing up immediately. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so so so so so _so_ sorry, Thomas..."

"It's all right... You had the best intentions, and if I had truly objected, I would have said so." Now that he could breathe easier, he sat up carefully, wary of his sore tailbone and leaning on one hand as he put the other to his head. Shaking it slightly, he found that he wasn't in bad shape after all. "See? I'll be just fine in a moment..."

He turned to give Cecile a weak smile, and stopped short. Her lower lip was trembling, and the look in her eyes was nothing short of misery. "...What's wrong?"

"...I don't know where we are," she told him, her voice sounding choked. "I don't know which direction we were headed when Sickle jumped the fence, or how many times he might have turned once we were in the forest, or how far we've gone... We might not be able to get home until morning, or later..."

She was a mess, Thomas realized - the nightshirt she wore had small holes in several places, her pigtails were tangled, and she'd lost one of her slippers. Moreover, despite the dim light, he could see tears shining in her eyes. "That's fine - don't worry about that right now," he told her, trying to keep his voice soothing. "What matters is, are _you_ all right?"

She nodded vaguely. "I'm not hurt... but we could be anywhere, and Sickle's gone, and... and Kathy's going to wake up and think there's a horse thief!" she cried, her voice finally breaking. "She'll think I'm not doing my job... and my new trainees will miss a day of guard training if I'm not there to train them, and you'll get a lecture from Sebastian on responsibility, and we don't have any food, or weapons, and what if there's monsters in the forest, and you say you're okay but you could just be saying that to make me feel better when you _might_ have internal injuries that we just can't see and you could _die_ before we can get back to the castle, and - and Martha will go to Iksay all by herself and without me there to save her she'll get eaten by a bear!"

"Calm down, calm down!" Thomas urged her. "I'm just fine, and we don't have bears around here." He paused, something having just occurred to him, and he glanced around uneasily. "...Do we?"

"I don't know!" Cecile wailed.

Thomas sighed, looking around and seeing very little, between the hour of the night and the thick cover of the forest. "Well... it's all right, I'll think of a way to get us out of this before long. We just need to remain calm..."

Cecile nodded, still sniffling a little bit as she tried to regain her strong demeanor. "I'm very sorry, Thomas, this is all my fault..."

"Stop it, Cecile," he told her, making his voice firm - the same voice he'd had to use when dealing with the Zexen Council. "A garrison commander can't waste time casting blame - they need to act to rectify the situation immediately."

Taking a deep breath, she nodded, setting her jaw firmly. "You're right, Thomas. I'll think of a way to get us out of this mess."

Thomas breathed a sigh of relief. It was unsettling to see Cecile close to tears, especially with her hair down and in a torn nightshirt and one slipper - she had looked like some other girl for a moment. But now he smiled to himself; with her mind back on her duty, and her face set in her "Garrison Commander of Budehuc Castle" expression, she looked much more like the Cecile he knew, despite the hair and nightshirt. That illusion was shattered for only a moment, when she hiccuped.

Taking another look around them, Thomas had an idea. "You said the moon was setting early tonight, didn't you?"

"Yes..." Cecile still looked slightly unsettled. "It'll be going down soon."

"All right then..." Thomas turned to his head to the left again, then tilted his head upwards, and nodded. "Then this way is west, because even though I can't see the moon through all these trees, I can see its light reflected on the clouds over that way."

"Wow!" Cecile's eyes widened. "I looked for the moon a second ago too, but I didn't think of that... And since the lake is to the west, if we head that way-"

"Exactly," Thomas finished. "And once we reach the lake, we'll head north."

"Because there are no forests this deep to the north, so we must have gone south!" Cecile finished.

"Good work, Garrison Commander," Thomas told her as he stood, ignoring the pain in his backside, and carefully brushed off his clothes. "We'll be home in no time."

Cecile bounced to her feet next to him, her face still set firmly. "And if we run into any monsters, well... I'll protect you with my bare hands."

Thomas smiled. "Thank you, but I hope that won't be necessary."

"It's the least I can do," she said seriously, following as he began picking a path through the brush, "after nearly getting you killed by a wild horse. I've not only failed to protect you, but-"

He paused and shook his head with a sigh. "Cecile..." he began, turning to her. "The important thing is that we're both all right. You don't need to think about it anymore. We'll tell Kathy what happened - it was an honest mistake, and horses can be replaced." He winced slightly, rubbing his lower back. "...Honestly, I think that one would be better off replaced."

He was rewarded by a soft, sheepish giggle, and he smiled. "No more apologizing or feeling guilty, Cecile - that's an order from the master of the castle."

When she nodded, she already looked much like her normal cheerful self, and he relaxed. "Now," he said, changing the subject, "we might have a long walk ahead of us. Would you sing me the rest of that song you were singing earlier, to help make it go faster?"

Not only did she sing the rest of the song for him, but the walk was long enough that the moon had set before they'd reached the lake, and she'd taught Thomas the song as well. Feeling less self-conscious than usual, seeing as it was only himself and Cecile, he'd even begun singing along with her.

"They were running helter-skelter,   
Feet were flying at a furious pace-"

The last few lines were cut off as they passed a thick grove of fir trees and saw water beyond. "We made it!" Cecile cheered, running ahead despite her missing slipper. "There's the lake - and there's the castle!"

Thomas joined her at the edge of the half-moon shaped clearing overlooking the lake, and sighed in relief. "It'll be nice to be home... and to get to bed at last."

"Sickle certainly did run far," Cecile commented, peering off to the north, where the castle was visible beyond another smaller expanse of forest.

Thomas nodded. "It's a pity he wasn't like the horse in your father's song," he told her with a smile. "Do you think Kathy could train all the horses at Budehuc to stop on the word 'milk', just to avoid this sort of situation in the future?"

For the third time that night, Cecile ambushed Thomas with another enthusiastic hug, laughing. "Oh, Thomas..."

"What?" he asked, hugging her back. Yes, it was much more comfortable to have her hug him when she wasn't in full armor, he thought to himself.

"I-I just... I want to thank you, for... for..."

To his surprise, she rose up on her toes, and gave him a quick kiss - barely a brush of her lips against his, and over before Thomas could blink.

Moments passed as he still stood completely motionless, his eyes wide, and Cecile's expression went from excited to slightly worried. "...W-Was that okay... Thomas?"

Thomas considered for a moment. It wasn't as if the thought had never crossed his mind before in the months since he'd come to Budehuc Castle, but he couldn't say the same for the thought of doing anything about it. Even if he did feel much more comfortable around her than anyone he'd met since leaving the Outlands, and her devoted service to him touched him beyond belief, and seeing her upset made him feel terrible, while just the sight of her smile made him smile too...

"Yes, Cecile," he told her, reaching out to hug her again. "That's just fine."


End file.
